The resignation of Rebekah Wade as News International director general is both a personal tragedy and a hammer-blow for News International. In just a matter of weeks, the senior management seems to have collapsed into a dysfunctional heap under the strain of first the Milly Dowling and then the Hugh Grant crises.

The irony is, as Michael Grade used to say, when he ran Channel 4: “It’s News International that keeps us honest.” That was true then, and it remains true today, despite the trouble that Wade’s resignation has prompted.

Almost every week, one News International title or another breaks a story with something new, important and interesting to say…

The News of The World – the programme I worked on for 25 years – has been right on song recently, with some hard-hitting investigations, most notably corruption in Pakistani cricket and unconscionable lying by Tory Boss Jeffrey Archer. In the latter case, the culprit has just been jailed.

At almost every level, News International journalism illuminates areas of our national life, and around the world, with a care and precision unmatched by other media outlets. On any objective view, News International is overwhelmingly a force for good and understanding. And this really is the point. The News of the World debacle is an aberration.

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The News International legal department is used to dealing almost on a daily basis with highly explosive material. Some of its lawyers could earn a fortune in public practice but settle for lower salaries because they believe in the moral purpose of public service broadcasting.

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It is easy to imagine the News of The World wishing to redeem its pride, built up from an impressive record of investigative journalism – phone-hacking allegations at the Sunday Mirror; dodgy metal hip replacements; Whitehall officials in tax avoidance deals; to name only a few – all of which would have been scrutinised in the referral process. But was the Dowling story subjected to the usual referral process? Not quite, it seems. The Milly Dowling crisis has caused such paralysis at the top of News International that the people who normally would have been consulted, were, I am told, not directly involved on this occasion…

We could have picked many other articles to have altered. But you get the gist…

News International did not die, however, which would have been a more accurate comparison. Newsnight may well die. Its credibility is shattered beyond redemption now. But it’s worth noting that Entwhistle went and Murdoch hasn’t, if you want to extend this a bit further.

Emma

This is a profoundly stupid question. Did the BBC hack the phones of – not only celebrities – but dead schoolgirls, rape victims, competitors, terror victims? Did they unlawfully pay public officials (police, prison officers, health workers) for confidential information? Did they put people’s lives at risk by recklessly acquiring details of people on the witness protection programme? Did the BBC lead to more than one suicide? Did they hack into the computer of a senior intelligence official? Do they have extremely dodgy connections to a disgraced criminal private investigator who was the lead suspect in the brutal murder of his busines partner? Did they then proceed to cover their criminality and purposefully obstruct a police investigation?
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Unless you can say all this about the BBC then even mentioning it in the same breath as the NOTW is idiocy of gargantuan proportions. Stop being silly.
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The News of the World may have been involved in some lurid exposes. But overall, this was a pernicious, vile organ which I, for one, am pleased to see extinct.

http://www.anorak.co.uk Anorak

Who owns the BBC? Sure the NoW failed. The sun was hideous over Hillsborough. What killed the NoW was not its past errors but the story that it had hacked Milly Dowler’s phone – an odious act – and deleted messages. Only, the Guardian got it wrong. It did not delete the messages. That paper than celebrated the end of the NoW. But it also hacked phones. Only, it claimed the motive was more ethical. Are ethics universal? They can’t be. Is the media lanscape better for the death of the NoW? No. Would it be better if the BBC fell apart? No. People make mistakes. The country needs a free and vibrant press, free to make errors. The end of a top show like Newsnight is not to be celebrated. It’s done some great stuff. The NoW also did some terrific work. The purpose of journalism is surely to publish truths the people in the story don’t want you to. The worry is that it’s about to get harder to do just that…

mahatmacoatmabag

Anorak, you are completely wrong about one essential matter. The BBC is the enemy of a Free Press & Free Speech. The BBC is the principal propaganda mouthpiece of the Marxist Labour party & acts against the interests of the British people. The BBC epitomises the Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth’ . The ‘Agenda’ they push is in every part of the BBC’s output, from Agitprop ‘Duckspeak’ news, to patently falsified documentaries on the Mid East conflict, Global Warming – you name it – they have falsified it, to Politicaly Correct Multiethnic Multicultural Gay/Lesbian/Transgender preferential commedies, dramas & history programmes . The BBC must Go & Go Now !

Emma

This idea that that the deletion of the messages led to the closure is absolute poppycock. It was the very fact of hacking that caused revulsion (whether or not messages were deleted was a secondary concern) IMO, Murdoch was planning to close the paper anyway and introduce The Sun on Sunday – it just expedited the process.
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I wholly dispute your claim that NOTW did ‘terrific work’. Nothing bad would have happened had it never existed. People like Neville Thurlbeck, Paul McMullen, etc are pure scum. They are not ‘journalists’ – they are bottom feeding toerags and some of them (not McMullen ironically given his tendency to shout his mouth off) are rightly facing the prospect of prison. Should Rebekah Brooks end up being convicted of all that she stands accused of, she could serve up to 10 years. Now currently of course, she is innocent. You see, I would insist on her rights even when she would have denied them to others.
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As for your comment about ethics, there may be a case for unlawful behaviour in the greater good but there should be no public interest ‘defence’. Any public interest should be decided on the basis of a prosecution (any prosecution must fulfil a public interest requirement in any case).
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It is also ridiculously dumb to suggest that any any statute on press behaviour means the press won’t be ‘free’. Liberty has many forms and a free press is not the only one. The right to privacy and the right to due process absolute determine ‘liberty’ and a ‘free press’ as inhibited both. We also don’t have a ‘free press’. We have a press beholden to the whims and prejudices of rich individuals. People selling this line are either staggeringly naive or downright liars.

evil

I thought Murdoch closed NOTW because it was toxic as a brand , ie it looked like it wouldn’t attract any advertising any more. It was a business decision. The BBC has made some bad mistakes , but they are only in relation to one programme , it doesn’t make the whole corporation toxic. And Entwhistle has resigned , by doing so he has accepted responsibility for the failures.